Dismayed with the declension of engineering courses across the nation the national technical education regulator All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) is planning ahead to cut the seats by 600,000. Earlier AICTE was accused of granting permissions to the new colleges without regulating and conceiving required seats for a healthy education many a times hence AICTE is reported to be planning contriving to cut down engineering course seats by 600,000 over the next few years.

Over 600,000 Engineering Course Seats to Be Reduced Across India Over Dismal Quality of Education

AICTE chairperson Anil Sahasrabudhe said “We would like to bring it down to between 10 lakh and 11 lakh from a little over 16.7 lakh now.” Over the next few years in order to stem a decline in the quality of education and address the issue of vacant seats AICTE is about to shut down some schools and to bring down the intake of students in some others

NASSCOM which is considered to be the software industry lobby group said in the year 2011 that only 17.5% of engineering graduates in the nation can be considered of being employable. In an official report, an education assessment company Aspiring Minds said that the employability of engineering graduates in various states ranges between 12% and 42%. Aspiring Minds report also said that only 18.43% of engineers are employable in software engineer-IT services roles and for jobs in mechanical, electronics/electrical and civil engineering, a mere 7.49% are employable.

The quality of engineering graduates from the colleges have been questioned earlier by many leading companies and MNC’s. While the main reason behind this is being claimed to be mushrooming of new colleges over past few years and AICTE granting permissions without any proper justification. MNC’s have said that they can consider students from top schools such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and some private institutions for the employment in their firms.

AICTE to Balance the Demand Supply Situation

While this year AICTE has reported to have received about 1,422 applications seeking permission to shut down the engineering departments or courses where about 556 engineering courses or departments have closed down this year alone. The main reason behind the shutdown of the engineering departments or courses was said to be the lack of proper infrastructure of this schools and inability of students of these colleges to get a jobs in firms due to inadequacy of employable skills.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, AICTE’s chairperson said “The intake capacity right now seems to be much above the demand, AICTE understands the need to balance the demand-supply situation.” He further added “AICTE will only facilitate the closure of engineering schools” entirely or in parts to achieve the target. Engineering colleges will not be forced to shut down and the regulatory body will ensure that students are not at the receiving end.” Official sources claim that there are more than 3,470 engineering colleges. Stay tuned with us for more trending alerts happening across the world by bookmarking us in your web browser for easy navigation.